“Despite the increased frequency and severity of online crime and espionage in 2011, many American corporations and consumers are still not taking the threat seriously, the FBI’s top cyber official said Thursday.
The risk posed by criminal hackers is “existential, meaning it could eliminate whole companies,” said Shawn Henry, the FBI’s executive assistant director. If hackers were able to tamper with critical infrastructure such as the power grid, “it could actually cause death,” Henry said in remarks at the International Conference on Cyber Security in New York. “
(Source: Cyber-Crimes Pose ‘Existential’ Threat, FBI Warns.)
